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Talk:Albion/@comment-123.217.65.31-20181011201011
It is thought there may have been two senses of who King Arthur was - 1. a British (ie Celtic or Romanized Celtic) war leader of the 5th and 6th centuries. The only actual historical source we have for this time and place is a monk (probably lived in Southwest Britain - Somerset or Dorset) named Gildas who wrote in latin during the mid 500's. Gildas said that after the Romans left (abt 413 AD) the various cities and districts of Britain were under attack from barbarians (Picts and Scots) from beyond Hadrian's wall (Highland Scotland) and across the Irish Sea (Ireland). Britain had been exposed to the Christian religion and there were Christian communities like the one that produced St Patrick but various forms of Roman religion and the remnants of Celtic religions were still practiced though not in anything like the form they had been before the Romans came. If there was any "old" religion it was in Ireland where the druids persisted until they adopted Christianity under Patrick (The druids had been eliminated from Britain South of Hadrians wall by the Romans three hundred years before). Gildas writes that to defend against the Scottish and Pictish raids (now these people were of the Old religion, whatever that meant) what was left of the various Romano British local governments after the Roman Army had left began to hire Angle and Saxon mercenaries from Denmark, Germany and Holland to defeat the Picts. It is also probable since the Romans apparently had been settling Anglo Saxon mercenaries in Britain for years during the empire that they hired some Anglo Saxon forces from within Britain itself. This arrangement was initially successful with the Anglo Saxon federates driving the Pictish and Scottish raiders off for the most part. But the surviving Romano British governments had to little money to keep paying them for long so they revolved and apparently looted and plundered and took control of territory to settle the "debt". At that time the Angles and Saxons were settled in Kent, on the Upper Thames River near Abingdon and Dorchester, throughout East Anglia and adjoining the Wash, and at the Saxon shore forts in Sussex and Kent and at the Humber River near York. According to Gildas this was done by a "tyrant" (popular leader/warlord who arose among the British). Some say he was "named" Vortigern but Vortigern just means "tyrant" in the old language. Governance as such collapsed, cities were abandoned, warlords of all ethnicities sprouted across the country and there was much pillaging and killing. Some wealthy people fled south to Roman controlled areas on the continent (this was also observed in Gaul). According to Gildas, a scion of an old Roman family (by his name related to the Archbishop of Milan, a Roman magistrate in Gaul and some wealthy Roman landowners in Britain) named Aurelianus Ambrosius began to organize various communities and restore order. This effort culminated in a victory for Ambrosius against the Angles and Saxons (those that were not allied with him) and whatever other divisive groups there were. It is said that the flow of mercenaries into Britain ceased and began to flow back onto the continent and that the effort was completed in a battle called Badon though Gildas does not say that Ambrosius led the British at Badon or even who Badon was against. A couple of hundred years (700's or 800's) later a British history recorded that a man named Arthur fought twelve battles, the last of which was Badon and that he became or was a Christian (an allusion to Constantine at Milvian Bridge - the British may have believed by this point that Aurelius Ambrosius and Arthur were descended from the British usurper Magnus Maximus -remotely possible - see "Pillar of Eliseg" - and Emperor Constantine - unlikely) Aurelius Ambrosius on the scant evidence we have was apparently a Christian. According to Gildas, Britain then knew a generation of peace. It would appear however that during Gildas period of Peace, various Angle and Saxon and even Scandinavian adventurers may have begun again to migrate into the Anglo Saxon footholds in Britain and during the general unrest of the period of the Merovingian wars of succession (570's to 600's) Anglo Saxon expansion within Britain began in earnest again. This may also correspond with pagan Saxon mercenaries formerly loyal to Christian Merovingian Kings Theudebald and Lothar being thrown out of Italy and having no place to go about that time. In particular during this period we see vast expansion by the Gewisse tribe on the Upper Thames and various small Anglo Saxon migrations out of the fens and into the midlands. And it is at that point that the light of history again falls on Britain with the writings of Bede. What Arthur may have done (if it is not merely a confusion of Arthur and Aurelius Ambrosius) was to put an end to the disorder that began with the Saxon revolt and to reverse the land grabbing of those Saxon mercenaries that were part of the revolt (we do not know that all the Germanic federates revolted or took one particular side. That is certainly not how they behaved on the continent) The Welsh saw Arthur as a liberator and unifier but that is probably in the context of aggressive conquests by Ceawlin (Wessex) and Aethefrith (Bernicia) that involved a great deal of slaughter and loss of territory and attempts by later Wessex Kings and Kings of Mercia like Offa to suppress the Welsh entirely. Even a century after Arthur Welsh high kings entered into alliances with and even commanded such powerful Angle warlords as Penda of Mercia. It has also been suggested, and I would not be surprised to discover given Gildas' silence regarding Arthur, that Arthur was a quasi religious/legendary folk hero of the British (and especially the Welsh) whose exploits were largely in a world of legend alongside those of Gwyddion of North Wales, or Pwyll of Dyfed or CuChulain from across the Irish sea and that the Welsh and other surviving British in Cornwall, Brittany and Cumbria came to see Ambrosius and Arthur as one in the same character. Ie when we talk about the great British 6th century warrior we are really talking about Ambrosius and when we talk about the King in Culwch and Olwen we are talking about the "real" Arthur. Much of what we think we know of Arthur was invented by storytellers (many of them French). What is meant by the "once and future king" is hard to know. To the extent it is genuine folklore and not some raconteurish invention by traveling minstrels, it might be a confusion of the introduction of Christianity with its concepts of resurrection and second coming on a shattered and confused and by the late 7th century increasingly beset and isolated British culture. All these stories were kept and mixed in the oral traditions of the bards no doubt before being written down in the 800's. Even after being written down, the tendency to spin a wild yarn and strike a surreptitious blow for this or that form of nationalism are nowhere more evident than in the wholesale inventions over the more circumspect collector of local yarns -Nennius (800's)- and his spare earlier chronicle by the Christian monk, Geoffrey of Monmouth (1100's). It is entirely likely that Geoffrey's romantic tales and those like them (Marie de France) were an attempt to please King Henry II of England who sought to deepen the allegiance to his house (he had a son or grandson named Arthur) of the Celtic Bretons and the Welsh for his own political purposes (cf the exhumation at Glastonbury) So perhaps one should not dwell too much on "When and why Arthur might return". In a certain manner of speaking (presuming that there are any left who truly believe the charming old Welsh folklore) he has never really quite been gone but is abiding eternally just out of sight, in the twilight between day and dark of night like Bran the Blessed or Rhiannon or Merlin himself. Arthur to the extent he is not a postumous title of honor for Aurelianus Ambrosius (Greek and Roman pagans often saw their gods in their kings) is a creation of a vast and ancient collective imagination. That has for centuries allowed all who tell his stories an almost unprecedented license to see the story in creative and charming new ways - as with the present series - and do absolutely no harm to the original. But lest anyone be confused, not about Arthur but about other aspects of history - 1．If there was an historical Arthur his enemies were the Saxons, not the 5 kingdoms 2. Arthur's followers would not have cast spells in Anglo Saxon - they would have used Brythonic or Latin 3. By Arthur's time, the aggressive Christianization of remaining pagan communities in West Britain was already well advanced. The South and East hand long since converted and then relapsed with the Saxon revolt. One has no idea what most of them believed. 4. Arthur, if there is any truth to the historical legend at all did not seek to establish peace between Christianity and the Old religion. If anything he just might have wanted an accommodation between Pelagianism or some form of Celtic Christianity with Roman Catholicism. That was the debate of the day. 5. The druids were wiped out from Britain (but not Ireland or Scotland beyond the Wall) before the year 100. The Irish (and Scottish) druids appear to have to a great extent voluntarily adopted Christianity, the old Druids becoming priests and saints in the process. There may have been a "pre druidic" "Old" religion but it is more likely that the druids were a development from that religon - as monastic orders are within Christianity. 6. Merlin was at least figuratively speaking (if Geoffrey be believed) a sort of Dragon lord. 7. The British strongly believed in magic. 8. In the pre-christian period and in folk belief thereafter, it is unlikely -until much later under reformation (ie witch hunting hysteria) influence- that powerful women like Morganna or Morgause were seen as evil or entirely so (That may also be overemphasized in the French traditions). Welsh folk beliefs celebrated strong female characters like Olwen, Branwen, Keridwen, Arianrhod, Rhiannon, the Lady of the Lake (Nimue?), Gwenhyfar, Bloduedd, Goewinand so on. Negative characterization of some of them was probably added or intensified in a later eras.